Poems from the House of Memory – 1

This past Tuesday, we had our regular (mostly regular) TweetSpeak poetry jam on Twitter. Ten poets participated, and for whatever reason, this one seemed to have flown quickly for the hour it existed. The prompts for the jam from @tspoetry were all taken from Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West, by Daniel Landinsky and others.

These are the first four of the edited poems; there are more to come.

The House of Memory

The house of love calls.
I hear its sweet voice
calling me
from shadows into light
so fine
it stuns.

Your house
clings to the hill
of my memory,
calls me to beds
of iris, phlox
gardenia.
Gardenia flowers
leave behind a strong scent.
I stoop to smell where they once were
and find your fingers there.

Roses snag,
pulling me back,
not letting go.
Darkness creeps
as wisteria hides my face
from my Lover.
He lives in a place
I do not dwell.
I seek
His Word
to understand.

Butterflies

I want to write about butterflies
tonight,
the kind of butterflies
that struggle to break free
and will somehow make you see
that you are beautiful,
always will be
beautiful.

Weeping willow,
you are hiding the butterfly’s wings
but I know they are there,
and they are brightly colored
and strong.
And it won’t be long
now;
she’ll be spreading those filmy shades of sunshine,
and untangled from your branches,
she will fly,
wings unclipped;
she soars
above His house.

She will fly
higher than she ever soared before,
because now she knows what it is like
to hang cocooned in pain,
to shiver and have
no way of understanding the cold.
She will whisper and then shout
until He turns her ashes into beauty
as He promised that He would.
And she soars, spiraling over composite
shingle and wisp of chimney smoke
though the day is not winter enough for flame,
flame to melt ice glass.

Winter Rye Across Your Lawn

Winter rye grows tall enough to bend
in tiny arcs across your lawn.
Rye bends like a fish
leaping.
Bowing at your entrance,
I’ve been expecting you.
This small pebble in the water
makes ripples,
ripples. Curve within curve, flowing
away. To shore.

I want to save you. I
want to take your hand and
watch you dance,
bring the life to your face,
understand the vastness
and the rhythms of soaring
waves
shivered into pieces,
falling like rubies , each His tear.
I want to save you.
And I know I can’t.

Just jump in she says,
but my mind wanders, following…
She’s going to quit the violin. I
had hoped to hear her play
sad music
one day.

I Am Quiet, I Am Small

I am quiet,
I am small,
as ice cold water
flows over me.
Turn me to your
face, whisper
me red like
rubies;
moon light shine to hurt,
casting light where darkness lulls,
moon light
my heart seeks
yet my window be closed,
aches quiet and closed. And
aches ruby red and falling
like hard cut drops of blood
from a sky I do not recognize.
I dodge the bullets;
smoke rises from chimney into blue; ice
shivers into pieces
above; below
all changes.

I, crying blue sapphires and
laughing yellow lemons
while you shake your head,
concerned and lost
and never able
to understand.
At your house, the tv knows when
it has spoken too much.

I get it, though you think I don’t.
I do. I get it. And
getting it doesn’t help
me. Getting it only makes
it all hurt… worse.